“Public Forgetting offers readers a new conceptual approach, analytical vocabulary, and evaluative framework with which to recast forgetting in [a] more favorable light. . . . [The book] ably tackles more than two millennia of bias against forgetting. This study of a neglected and constitutive dimension of memory suggests new directions for research in the interdisciplinary field of memory studies. The signal contribution of Public Forgetting is its reminder of the intimate relationship of remembrance and forgetting. Appeals to remember are simultaneously, implicitly or explicitly, appeals to forget (and vice versa). By inviting readers to adopt this more complex appreciation of their interplay, Vivian sets a new critical standard for future scholarship in the field.”—Katherine E. Mack Rhetoric and Public Affairs